In 2005 the Darien Police Department joined the Southwest Regional Emergency Response Team. This highly specialized team is also comprised of officers from the Trumbull, Westport, Wilton, Monroe, and Easton Police Departments. This unit was established to deal with situations which require equipment, techniques, and training that is beyond the norms for most police officers. The members of this unit are specifically trained to handle hostage situations, barricaded subjects, civil disturbances, high risk warrants, or any incident in which there is a high probability that someone may be seriously injured due to a criminal act.
Incidents involving barricaded subjects, hostage takers, or persons threatening suicide represent especially trying and stressful moments for law enforcement personnel who respond to them. Officers first responding to the scene must quickly assess the totality of the situation, secure the area, gauge the threat to hostages or bystanders, and request additional units as appropriate.

Crisis Negotiators must establish contact with subjects, identify their demands, and work to resolve tense and often volatile standoffs without loss of life.
Two Officers and one Lieutenant from the Darien Police Department are assigned as negotiators to the Southwest Regional Emergency Response Team. The three negotiators were trained in an intense 40 hour class taught by members of the FBI and Naval NCIS at the FBI New Haven office.
The team's mission is to provide a professionally trained and prepared unit to resolve critical incidents in the most peaceful manner possible. The goal is to minimize risk faced by citizens, officers, and also criminal suspects. The team trains twice a month and on every third month they have an additional firearms training day. All officers assigned to E.R.T. have other full-time assignments within their respective agencies. All members were selected based on physical fitness, firearms proficiency, and supervisory recommendations.